This white and honest house for a family of three people was designed by French-Spanish studio Vida Architecture in collaboration with Matriz Arquitectura. The house is located in the last buildable area between the town of Baza and its countryside, a small town in Andalusia, in the province of Granada, southern Spain.

Separated from the rest of the city by a crowd of heterogeneous urban facilities - high schools, fire station, sports center, public swimming pool, hypermarket, the district is currently a mixture of vacant plots and detached houses.
Paiding attention the climate and culture of the South of Spain, VIDA architecture and Matriz Arquitectura designed a patio house. A house looking inside with a nake gaze  to its minimal shapes.

The hermetic house and its white main façade is marked by a blue window-balcony. A square opening framing outside landscape.

The square plan house, has a T-shaped programme dividing the space and creating two courtyards: a access yard and garage, and a more private patio.

Geometric of living area  and its double height allows that light and space flow between the two levels house, facilitating lighting, cross ventilation, ultimately making the house friendly and protective with its inhabitants. Besides, on the ground floor are projected two bedrooms, on the upper floor, there is a multipurpose room; a work area, a playroom or a guest room, with its spcial blue balcony.

The Casa RR was built with a tight budget, in load-bearing walls of insulating bricks, lightened floors, natural plasters and using a single module for exterior joinery. Versatile and scalable, the house can be reorganized to meet new needs: creation of a new bedroom upstairs, work at home, pergola bioclimatic...
 

Project description by Vida Architecture - Matriz Arquitectura

The site is located in the last buildable area between the town of Baza and its countryside. Separated from the rest of the city by a crowd of large urban objects - high schools, fire station, sports center, public swimming pool, hypermarket, the district is currently a mixture of vacant lots and detached houses.

In this heterogeneous, unwelcoming context, casa RR is installed introspectively, reinterpreting the typology of house-patio. The future inhabitants, two adults and their daughter, seek direct contact with the outdoor spaces and an organization that allows them to find individual intimacy, according to the motto "juntos, pero no revueltos" (together, but not mixed).

The traditional scheme - patio in the center as a place for living together, surrounded by more or less intimate living spaces - is transformed to understand outdoor spaces as additional "rooms" for the house which, by their position, their characteristics and their relationship to the interior, allow to be appropriate in different ways.

The plan is structured according to this principle from a simple geometry. A large central room allows the family being together at the same time as it separates the private areas on each side. A double height introduces overhead light and extends this space to the upper floor, thought of as a multipurpose place: study or work area, guest bedroom, play area ...  This configuration optimizes interiors layouts, take advantage of sunlight and offers through ventilation.

Pocket joinery plays a fundamental role, blurring the line between interior and exterior; in summer, with the windows open, the house becomes a large porch.

On the street, only a bay breaks with the introverted character of the house offering a place of observation of the city and its nearby countryside and giving the facade an own unique, domestic and playful personality.

Built in load-bearing walls of insulating bricks, lightened floors, natural plasters and using a single module for exterior joinery the construction adapts to a very tight budget. To anticipate future developments, the necessary overloads and structural elements are planned. Versatile and scalable, the house can be reorganized to meet new needs: creation of a new bedroom upstairs, work at home, pergola bioclimatic...

The Casa RR responds, through geometric and constructive simplicity, to a tight budget offering a generous, flexible and mutable architecture.

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Architects
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Collaborators
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Structural Engineering.- MATRIZ arquitectura, Miguel A. Lucena Valverde
Director of works.- Jesus Serrano.
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Area
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178 sqm.
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Dates
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Completion.- 2019.
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Photography
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VIDA architecture is a young studio founded in 2016 by Ana Vida. It has been set up in two cities: Paris and Granada. Emphasizing this double Franco-Spanish experience, the studio runs its activity exploring the ways of living of our time and imagining new synergies (programmatic, social, spatial, temporal ones...) and as well questioning traditional typologies. Among the topics of interest of the studio is the reflection on the possibilities of reusing the built heritage of the twentieth century, but always looking for its evolution.

In the last few years, due to these researchs, the studio has been awarded with: winner of the "Maison Alsacienne du XXIe siécle" competition, Alsace (France),  second prize in the Europan 15th  Competition in Champigny-sur-Marne (France) and special mention in the the competition "Renovons le logement autrement, Soissons (France).
 
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Matriz Arquitectura is an architecture firm founded by Marta Lomas Casanova, Cum Laude doctor in Urbanism, Territorial Planning and Environment from the University of Malaga. It is based in Nerja and promotes a transversal practice associated with theoretical reflection. Through collaboration with experts from different fields, the studio reflects on new ways of spatial planning that optimize material resources and allow us to be less dependent on energy and more respectful of society and the environment.

Her thesis, entitled «Urban nature and analysis processes in a touristic environment. A proposal for a "green" infrastructure in Malaga» and completed in 2016, has had a great influence on  Malaga´s area  and especially in the elaboration of the Special Plan Gibralfaro.which she contributed to in 2007 and 2017. Her work has been recognized by getting the Research Initiation Scholarship in 2005 and the Rizoma Foundation Scholarship Award in 2009.


 
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Published on: August 27, 2020
Cite: "Looking at Climate and culture of the South. Casa RR by Vida Architecture and Matriz Arquitectura" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/looking-climate-and-culture-south-casa-rr-vida-architecture-and-matriz-arquitectura> ISSN 1139-6415
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